Marcel Proust

[bIGwIRE]

Even a bureau crammed with souvenirs,
Old bills, love letters, photographs, receipts,
Court depositions, locks of hair in plaits,
Hides fewer secrets than my brain could yield.
It's like a tomb, a corpse-filled Potter's field,
A pyramid where the dead lie down by scores.
I am a graveyard that the moon abhors.
-Baudelaire

Marcel Proust's "In Search of Lost Time" is more than just an elaborate series of dinner parties and conversations,
it is a journey through the mind, to the hidden place where time stops.

I would love to see a proper Proust thread on Lit-Net.
I am not qualified to lead such a discussion, but I would love to be a part of one. So, please, indulge me.

What was your experience with reading Proust? What about his art is special? What was he searching for, if anything?
Talk about his life, his method, his ideas and philosophy on memory..... anything Proust.

[ashulman]

For me the process of reading Recherche was one of stops and starts. I got halfway through Swann's Way years ago and just couldn't stick with it. Then several years back I picked it up where I left off and suddenly I was fascinated. Now, everything he said made sense to me, and I was dazzled by the sharpness of his insight and his elegance of expression. Then I went on to Budding Grove and had the same reaction - 100 pages in and stop. Went back again years later and once again was swept up. This time it stuck. I saw that I wasn't reading for the plot, but for the sheer brilliance and beauty of the writing. So I kept going, with breaks in between sections just to read other stuff. Most recently I am midway through The Captive and taking another break. But I have no doubt I will finish in the coming months.

[chrisvia]

Wow, I checked the dedicated author forums, and you're right; there's no forum for Proust.

I discovered Proust whikle studying Kerouac's Duluoz legend, which the author himself compares to Proust's sprawling opus.

But before then I had long experienced these snatches of memories, seemingly randomly popping into my mind. Then I started to notice patterns, or triggers. For example, the smell of a bonfire would call up memories of the previous October when I had had a very pleasant time with friends around a campfire. Little did I know, the master painter of this phenomenon had produced his magnum opus based on what would come to be termed Proustian, or voluntary, memory.

Most artists have this longing for the innocence and excitement of youth (see Rilke's "Imaginary Career," for example), and who doesn't enjoy getting momentarily swept away by their most precious memories of a time when they didn't have the responsibilities of adulthood crushing down on their backs (slight allusion to Miller's comments about the world breaking men's backs, from Tropic of Cancer)? Well, Proust takes it all a step further, giving us the iconic lime blossom event as a trigger for a wellspring of memories, deftly stitched together across 6 volumes, all of which are packed with a tapestry of rich detail-intense sentences.

I have read the 4 (I-IV) recent Penguin translations, and the 2 (V-VI) Modern Library installments; and I would be delighted to participate in a dedicated thread!

[chrisvia]

For me the process of reading Recherche was one of stops and starts. I got halfway through Swann's Way years ago and just couldn't stick with it. Then several years back I picked it up where I left off and suddenly I was fascinated..

I had the same initial experience with Swann's Way, James's Portrait of a Lady, and Wolfe's Look Homeward, Angel. What's amazing is how, when I picked these works back up and decided to start from the beginning, I found that everything I had read came flooding back! I even remembered the setting in which I originally started the books, and what was going on in my life. A very meta-Proustian experience in itself!

[cacian]

Great subject Marcel Proust. And what a fine writer indeed.
Here is a poem I wrote a time ago to celebrate his ingenious talent in dedication to him.

coust* from accoustic
croup* from croupier
roul* from roulette
toup* from touppie

marcel proust
the man with
the coust
never doubt
the boost
his wording
croups
his writing
is roul
like the billiard
with a toup

I shall post more about his writing when I can.

[bIGwIRE]

But before then I had long experienced these snatches of memories, seemingly randomly popping into my mind. Then I started to notice patterns, or triggers. For example, the smell of a bonfire would call up memories of the previous October when I had had a very pleasant time with friends around a campfire. Little did I know, the master painter of this phenomenon had produced his magnum opus based on what would come to be termed Proustian, or voluntary, memory.

Most artists have this longing for the innocence and excitement of youth (see Rilke's "Imaginary Career," for example), and who doesn't enjoy getting momentarily swept away by their most precious memories of a time when they didn't have the responsibilities of adulthood crushing down on their backs (slight allusion to Miller's comments about the world breaking men's backs, from Tropic of Cancer)? Well, Proust takes it all a step further, giving us the iconic lime blossom event as a trigger for a wellspring of memories, deftly stitched together across 6 volumes, all of which are packed with a tapestry of rich detail-intense sentences.


Proust, too, noticed the direct link between our sense of tastse and smell and our memory.

"When from a long distant past nothing subsists, after the people are dead, after the things are broken and scattered, taste and smell
alone, more fragile but enduring, more unsubstantial, more persistent, more faithful, remain poised a long time, like souls, remembering,
waiting,hoping, amid the ruins of all the rest; and bear unflinchingly, in the tiny and almost inpalpable drops of their essence, the vast
structure of recollection."

In Swann's Way, the famous madeleine brings out his ideas on this perfectly, and he used it as a point from which to unravel his entire being.

Have you ever read Proust was a Neuroscientist by Jonah Lehrer? I know Jonah has taken alot of heat lately, and lost some jobs in the process, but I enjoyed his section on Proust, and thought him a charming writer.

Prehaps some more scientific minds can chime in here, but according to the studies he mentions, our senses of smell and taste are the only senses directly connected to the hippocampus, the brains long term memory center. All our other senses are are first filtered through the thalamus. His intuition guided him to this thruth long before science could confirm it.

Some of his connections make sense, like the cookie calling to mind Combray, much like the smell of a bonfire draws up memories of time spent around bonfires. Some, however, are completely unexplained. For example, the napkin reminding him of the ocean. I notice those strange connections in my own mind as well.

Lehrer likens our nerual connections to a loom, and by meticulously retracing all those connections, like Proust did, we can understand ourselves.
Interesting stuff...

[ashulman]

BTW, I had my first Madeleine at Cafe Boulud in NYC recently, and I can see why his whole life came flooding back - damn that was a good cookie! Appropos of nothing, Yoko Ono was eating in the same restaurant, so I'll have a cool memory of that next time I eat one.

[chrisvia]

I have not read Lehrer's book, but you have effectively compelled me to seek it out!

Very interesting thoughts indeed. And it does stem beyond smell and taste, of course. Music, for example, is a grand memory trigger. Just this morning I listened to Mozart's Fantasy in Dm--a piece I hadn't listened to in over a year--and immediately I was transported back to the very time and place of my last listen: I was back in our family getaway, a rustic wood cabin set off the Blue Ridge Parkway in Virginia. I could see and feel the fabric of the old couch in the living room, the random bric-a-brac on the walls from years of patronizing little mountain shops. I could smell the coffee and eggs from the kitchen. And I could even feel and sense the state of my being at the time, as if truly looking back on myself as an older, different person.

And speaking of the napkin: yes, I have experiened memory recall from simply looking at certain textures and intuiting the way they feel. For example, looking at the rough surface of a napkin and intuiting the salty texture of the ocean; and then, bingo, here my senses are flooded with a fragment of a memory of standing in or at the sea.

Truly, truly amazing is our brain.

Thanks for the book suggestion!

[chrisvia]

...damn that was a good cookie!

HA!

I always associate the restaurant La Madeleine in Georgetown in DC (a place I frequented for years) with Proust. Just the name, in general, whether a person or thing, is inseparably associated with Proust in my mind now.

[Desolation]

Proust is one of those huge "Jesus Christ, how the **** did he just do that?" writers. He can be an overwhelming experience, sometimes.

I've only made it through the second volume, and I'm considering just setting it aside until I'm able to read it from beginning to end in French (I'm at the end of my first year right now - maybe next year?).

[bIGwIRE]

And it does stem beyond smell and taste, of course. Music, for example, is a grand memory trigger.

Its true, any of our senses can transport us in time and evoke strong memories, but our senses of sight, touch, and hearing are first processed by the thalamus, our center of language, among other things, and because of that they less connected to our memory than our senses of smell or taste, which are directly processed by our memory center, the hippocampus.

Proust picked up on this, which is why just looking at the madeleine didn't summon up any memories.
He even wrote;"Prehaps because I had so often seen such madeleines without tasting them, their image had disasociated itself from those Combray days."

Aren't we all glad he ate it?

[bIGwIRE]

Proust is one of those huge "Jesus Christ, how the **** did he just do that?" writers. He can be an overwhelming experience, sometimes.

I've only made it through the second volume, and I'm considering just setting it aside until I'm able to read it from beginning to end in French (I'm at the end of my first year right now - maybe next year?).

I agree, Proust takes some serious digestion time. Its so rich that at times it needs dilution. When I was reading it I read an easier book at the same time, like Vonnegut's Bluebeard, and traded off for a couple days while I thought about the Proust I had read. Otherwise I had the same feeling I get from eating too much cheesecake... delicious but overwhelming.

I appluad your plans to read it in French. Maybe after my kids are out of school I'll follow your lead.

Good luck :)

[ashulman]

Another great resource is Bloom's essay on Proust and sexual jealousy in The Western Canon.

[hawthorns]

Yeah the guy had genius in spades. I remember thinking when I was reading recherche that it should be required text for psych students lol. Add the complexity/number of its themes, thoroughly fleshed out characters, its sheer magnitude, sentences that you want to bathe in, and you have one incredible work. As a science major I wasn't much of a reader until just a few years ago. Then I somehow discovered Proust. Many (even most) report that Proust has more relevance later in life, and maybe that's why I was taken right at the first memorable line. Swann's Way was unquestionably fantastic--esp the first 50 pages and Swann In Love. But for some reason I thought he reached the pinnacle of style, thematic richness, and description in Cities of the Plain (S&G) and Time Regained. The Captive, good as it was, sometimes dragged.

Bigwire--I love that painting in your sig. Damn...what's the name and where did I see that?! LOL

[bIGwIRE]

Bigwire--I love that painting in your sig. Damn...what's the name and where did I see that?! LOL

The Absinthe Drinker by Viktor Oliva. It was hanging in the Cafe Slavia in Prague, Czech Republic. A friend who visited brought me a reprint.

[wizenedyouth]

Firstly I'd like to say that I've really enjoyed reading the contributions above; I stumbled across this thread after a google search for some much-anticipated Proustian discussion, and have since decided to sign up to the online-literature community, so thank you.

I'm nearing the end of Le côté de Guermantes, the first volume I'll have read entirely in french (albeit with some cross-referencing between the original french and the penguin translation by Mark Treharne), and I have to say that the latest penguin translations retain Marcel's voice, style, pace, elegance, and above all, simplicity* so well that I didn't feel any dissonance between the experiences of reading Recherche in both English and French. Maybe this is a testament to the proximity of our languages, such as similarities in our use of idiom? Or perhaps just an effect of consistently cross-referencing between the two editions (I'd be interested in other opinions on translating Proust).

For me, Proust's value lies in his ability to isolate universal moments that resonate with the reader; in Swann's way this most famously relates to the tumultuous feelings of anxiety and vulnerability that we all experience in childhood, but it extends beyond that. As someone who has watched younger family members grow up, I was moved by the following simile (copied from the Treharne translation):

I have chosen to leave out context in the interest of avoiding 'spoilers', since I'm not certain about the etiquette around plot-spoiling, being new to the community.

And after the geraniums, by intensifying their brilliant colour, have put up a vain struggle against the gathering twilight, a mist comes to envelop the island as it falls into slumber; you walk in the moist darkness along the water's edge, where the only thing likely to startle you is the silent passage of a swan, like the briefly wide-open eyes and smile of a child in bed at night whom you thought was asleep. And because you feel alone and the world can seem far away, you long all the more to have a lover walking beside you.

Perhaps this won't carry much resonance with others, but therein lies the beauty of Proust. You feel a personal connection to his poetic prose because of how it interacts with your own experiences, so I guess I can say he achieves a kind of 'tailored' or 'personalised' universality. For me, I remembered times when I would look after my younger relatives and find them innocently scampering around at bed time, or telling me about their dreams in a half-sleeping daze. Similarly, I felt a pang of guilt when reading Marcel's rumination on the nature of self-reproach, remembering and regretting an incident from my adolescence when I was cruel to my sister.

On another level, I find Proust hilarious. There is a scene in which a younger Bloch (Swann's way) sobs at the thought of Marcel's grandmother taking ill in bed, so eager is he to convey his sensibility he neglects the fact that she was merely suffering from a momentary bout of cold, if that, thus betraying his pretentious nature; it still makes me laugh. Not to mention the antics of Aunt Léonie and the contradictions inherent to Françoise.

The more I read through the Recherche, I find myself talking to my friends about his characters as if I had just left their salon, they are some of the most multi-dimensional and life-like I've ever experienced, in spite of the chasm of epoch and social milieu that separates us.

These are my initial thoughts but I look forward to discussing more with you all.

* 'Simplicity' might sound odd, given his penchant for what a lot of people see as Proustian convolution, but I mean it to outline a contrast with some earlier translations that forsake Proust's style for unnecessary floweriness on the translator's part.